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It’s not just the weather that’s perplexing this time of year: It’s also when many Vancouver presenters announce their plans for the forthcoming season while the last of this year’s best stuff is still waiting in the wings.

Future lineups at the Vancouver Symphony and Vancouver Opera have been public knowledge for a while, but the last few days have seen reveals of treats in store involving the Vancouver Recital Society, Friends of Chamber Music, the Turning Point Ensemble and the Chan Centre.

The Vancouver Recital Society has divided its offerings into three different series. The biggest events are grouped as five Classic Afternoons at the Chan Centre, kicking off Sept. 28 with superb German baritone Christian Gerhaher, and including pianist Paul Lewis performing with the Vertavo String Quartet (Nov. 9) and solo recitals by pianists Emanuel Ax (Jan. 18) and Stephen Osborn (Feb. 22).

The edgier Next Generation series runs at the Vancouver Playhouse and is devoted to younger performers. Given the society’s enviable track record of spotting rising stars good and early, it’s here that the biggest surprises will be found over the course of six Sunday afternoon concerts. The impressive Doric String Quartet (Nov. 23) has already been heard here; other performers will be making Vancouver or Canadian debuts, including pianists Pavel Kolesnikov (Nov. 16), Francesco Piemontesi (March 22), and Joseph Moog (April 12).

The third series, Peak Performances, offers a trio of special evenings with big-name performers Benjamin Grosvenor (March 6), Ian Bostridge (April 15) and Paul Lewis (May 3). These stars will perform not on the big stages of the Orpheum or the Chan, but in the intimate environment of the Playhouse. It’s a bold and even extravagant idea, but a wonderful one.

Friends of Chamber Music offers a strong playlist of 10 concerts for its 67th season, all at the Playhouse, starting with perennial favourite the Emerson Quartet (Oct. 7) playing Britten, Ravel and a new work by Lowell Liebermann. Other string quartets on offer include the Escher (Nov. 18), the Takacs (Dec. 9) and the Prazak (March 10). Moving outside FOC’s core quartet focus will be performances by the Finckel, Han and Setzer trio (Feb. 15); Octagon (playing the Beethoven Septet and the Schubert Octet, March 24); and two different configurations of the Chamber Music Soloists of Lincoln Centre (Jan. 20 and April 14). Of course, it’s wrong to talk about soloists with “chamber groups,” but how else can you describe the presence of that incomparable pianist Menahem Pressler (who turns 91 this December) featured with the Pacifica Quartet in Dvorak’s Piano Quintet (Jan. 13)?

With its emphasis on 20th- and 21st-century repertoire, the Turning Point Ensemble offers some of the most intriguing programming among our smaller organizations. Its season starts early with a Sept. 19 show at the Playhouse, Imagined and Remembered Worlds, a smorgasbord of works from imaginary worlds and other times, from Viennese waltzes to Korean street music. Carnival, offered in a pair of concerts (March 13/14) at SFU’s Goldcorp Centre, combines newish music by Jocelyn Morlock with Hindemith and Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals — the latter not a piece one usually associates with the 20th century, but one that had to wait until 1922 for its first public performance. The series concludes with Masque Early and New: A Musical Time Capsule, a theatre in the round program of new takes on old music from Britten to Maxwell Davies, at the Telus Studio Theatre (April 17/19).

Out at University of B.C., the Chan Centre has been staking out an idiosyncratic blend of jazz and world music programs with a strong multicultural fusion agenda. Bassist Edgar Meyer and mandolin player Chris Thile inaugurate the series (Sept. 16). Over the course of nine concerts, notable guests will include Ireland’s The Gloaming (Nov. 15), Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock (April 15), the latest Zakir Hussain project, Celtic Connections (March 21), and pipa player Wu Man and the Shanghai Quartet performing works including a chamber version of Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera (May 9).

Like the VRS, the folks at the Chan offer some intriguingly different options. There’s a two-event Beyond Words series that launches with Inuit throat-singer Tanya Tagaq (Oct. 16/17) and a Radius series in the Telus Studio Theatre that sees three local groups address the idea of medieval courtly entertainments (five evenings in April).

Finally, a word on consumer strategy. Though arts management gurus tell us audiences are now far too busy to start thinking about a Wednesday evening next April, here and now (mid-May) a rethink might be in order. I can suggest at least three compelling reasons to plan ahead.

1) Big-name events with the likes of Ian Bostridge or Chick Corea are going to do well, and there are only so many tickets.

2) Series tickets, many with various pick-and-choose options, are offered at substantial discounts.

3) Presenters bet that commitment gives rise to happy discoveries. They already know how to provide variety and excitement; a series purchase gives customers the best opportunities to sample and enjoy.

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Future events offer many classical musical treats in Vancouver

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